PGSD Atma Jaya University - Jakarta

Before started teaching at PGSD, I always had the idea that the students there were mature adult, a bit reserved and conservative. I was wrong. The enthusiasm of these youth to be teachers of Elementary schools amazed me. They are those students taking the English Teaching stream...

They seem to absorb whatever is taught wholeheartedly, and they are willing to do the assignments to their utmost. They are so voluntaring and ready to assist and support each other. Microteaching becomes so alive.

Teachers Preparation Sharing - Another Key to Successful Teaching

Sharing seems to be a word teachers need to popularize and to take into action.
Each head is aching when new semester starts, dreaming on a smooth creative teaching activities up to the end of the semester. However, spirit dies down with the growth of time.

What about working together during the semester break, preparing the whole semester upfront? Spare 2-3 days together, dividing the work, sharing and presenting the result, then compiling the work? Then, at least during the semester we can ease down the stress and work on our creativity.

Teachers at the Language Center of Malahayati University Lampung have started sharing with one another.

Creating Visual Aids

Visual Aids is a vital part in teaching English. The use of it should be learned and mastered by teachers.

The use of OHP is now forgotten with the existence of LCD. However, there we can actually still use it creatively to create charms for the students.

I learned from Karren Konnerth from Calliope Puppet, USA back in 2008. When I shared it with my students at Atma Jaya University, they were, too, amazed with it.

Story Telling in Its Many Forms

Story Telling is an must for teachers of young learners. There are thousand of ways to present the stories, also in involving the students to take part in the process of telling the stories itself.

Teaching and giving training on the subject gave me chances to expand my own knowledge, ideas and skill in telling stories. Well, that's the art of sharing.

Young Learners: Tabularasa and Brain Plasticity

During the 2-day workshop in TEYL in Malang on May 1-2, one of the presenters underlined the theories of Children as tabularasa and the brain plasticity. That was why young learners learn things faster than adult.

Whether those theories are taken as myths or misconception, when it is regarding teachers, I think the most important things is the QUALITY OF INPUT. Since Teachers of young learners will be the first in introducing the foreign language, so if we refere to the tabularasa and brain plasticity, the input should be qualified. If not, then it will be a disaster to the following level teachers, say the high school teachers. Correcting the brain is NOT a simple thing.

During the workshop, I found out that YES, the teachers NEED to IMPROVE their COMPETENCE. There were some basic mistakes they made and yet they were in leisure fun and group activities, and they were reminded to consult one another to check their sentences so quality input was guaranteed.

See some examples in the pictures below. Now....what do we do? They were so confident in teaching English and..the quality...?

Jigsaw Reading for Young Learners - A Way to Enhance Cooperation

Jigsaw Reading for young learners? Is it possible?
Of course it is. Only, the teacher needs to prepare more, and needs energy along the activity to control and give support to the students.






First we divide a reading text into some parts, in accordance with the number of students in the group. Then we post all the parts on the wall, one is a distant away from the other.
We divide the students in groups and assign numbers within the group (or they choose who wants to be number 1, 2, etc.
Then each is assigned to read one part of the reading (on the wall), and return to the group to retell what he/she has read in turn. Then, after everyone get his/her part, another group task can be or should be assigned to assess the reading gist.

Scrap Book - Introducing Writing to Young Learners

Scrap Book is a media for teaching writing to young learners.
One page at a time, and only one or sentences, prompted with picture(s).




After learning a certain topic/theme, students are guided to express their personal attachment to the topic in writing, as simple as "My name is Dendy but my Mom calls me Prince". The one-page masterpiece is loosly bound with strings or ribbon to be added with another piece on another topic. By the end of the term, students, teachers and parents can use the scrap book as a base of evaluating the students' progress. And...in many workshops with teachers and students...they found this activities engaging and...fun.

From KOLITA 8 Atmajaya Jakarta

Sitting among those researchers, made me wonder. How could they thought of those things that did not make sense for me? The explanation of the 'behind the tone and choices of words of Anggodo's phone communication. I was puzzled the whole session.
I am from the practical side, so those analizing mind is not mine.

One other participants asked me about what I learned from the forum. A lot. I saw their 'abstract beauty' powerpoint and felt so wanting to shout that I was bothered with their quality of powerpoint. I also learned how bored listeners/participants could be, attending such a boring presentation. And last but not least, I learned that sometimes scholars were analizing topics/things that were very low in the social usability.

I closed the conference with practical tips in teaching young learners through songs.

Tragedy of the National Exam

My heart was reaching out to those teenagers getting so emotional I saw on TV the whole day, Monday, April 26, 2010. They were part of the 10-- % highschool students who did not pass the National Exam, way exceeding the percentage the year before. Some were fainted not being able to accept the result, some were in trance, some others were crying histerically.

As a mother, I dared not even imagine how broken their moms' hearts were. As a teacher, I was really dumbfounded, and as a teacher trainer I could not accept the reality either.

National Exam has always be a heatening debate. From year to year. And yet, seeing at the news, there was no comment from the policy makers at all. One newspaper casted: Gov Needs to be Honest. Honest about what? I am in doubt.Where were they? They were not even around when the mess happened. And yet, they were everywhere on the screen before the exam days...assuring things....

In some more days, the result for the junior high students will be announced. Will the same scene happen? And next week, the National Exam for the Elementary School students will take place. They are so young....too young to bear the torture...

TEYL - Demands and Challenges

Teaching English to Young Learners is now a big bussiness not only in Indonesia, but also in a greater area. Governments and the authorities are very much aware about this and have issued different policies to cater the demands.

Some principles of teaching English to Young Learners include:
*Involve balanced VAK
*Be in clear and meaningful context
*Involve a variety of activities -stir and settle
*Involve interaction
*Be based on real language use
*Involve the four skills integratively
*Make children feel that the language they learn is theirs

If you claim yourself a teacher of young learner, are you really ready to teach children accordingly?

Cooperative Learning for Young Learners

According to FORBES 500, in the years of 2000, what the occupational world requires employees who have strong interpersonal skills, problem solving capacity and teamwork.
What can we do to help our chidren develop those skills? Especially, as English teachers, what can we do?

One of the ways by applying Cooperative Learning in the teaching. Cooperative Learning refers to a set of instructional methods in which students work in small, mixed-ability learning teams. The students in each team are responsible not only for learning the material being taught, but also for helping their teammates learn. But,
Cooperative Learning for Young Learners, is it possible?

The answer is, of course it is. However, it requires hard works from the teachers' side. Heads On, Hearts On, Hands On. Teachers need to walk the extra miles from generating ideas and strategies, not just doing what the average teachers do. That's Heads on. In designing the activities, teachers need to keep on thinking of the students' learning styles and strategies. Then, during the classroom activities, teachers are taking active role, instructing, monitoring and prompting assistance necessarily.

We tried it out in a one day workhop at Universitas Pakuan Bogor, attended by around 100 teachers. We did work hard, but we also had a very good time together.

Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom

Each child has his or her own characteristics.
The theory of mulitple intelligences (Gardner, 1993) seems to harbor a number of educational implications that are worthy of consideration. Armstrong (1994) has synthesized these ideas into four key points that educators find attrative about the theory.
1. Each person possesses all eight intelligences. All the eight function together in unique ways.
2. Intelligences can be developed. They change with age, training, and/or experienvces.
3. Intelligences work together in complex ways. Intelligences are always interacting with each other.
4. There are many different wasy to be intelligent. There is no set standard of attributes that one must have in order to be considered intelligent.

Now the question is: how can we apply all of those into classroom day to day teaching, so that each may learn and no one is left behind?

I gave workshops in the RELO Roundtable Discussion session, at LBI FBS UI, KOLITA 7 Atmajaya University, the TEFLIN Conference at UIN Jakarta, and also writing and faciltating workshops for Elementary School teachers. The book is entitled: "Becoming a Creative TEacher: A MAnual for Elementary School Teachers in Indonesia

Story Telling for Young Learners

Storytelling brings together aspects of the primary curriculum. Storytelling gives chances to learners to explore shapes, size, textures, causes & effect, and it also serves as an extension to primary subjects: science, geography, history. Through storytelling learners learn making sense of the world, emotional and social development. Stories also play as stimulus to the imagination.

Getting the students involved in the story, not just repeating after the teacher or the storyteller is an additional challenge. However, this can be done in different ways. At the same time, they are learning the meaning of the words.